Building on Faith
by Hrunting
Summary: Continued from Death Love and Rock 'n Roll. Faith steps deeper into the story as Oz tries to deal with what he is and Jo tries to move past life with her mentor
1. Innocence Lost

Title: Building on Faith  
EMAIL: crc@crcdesign.net  
SUMMARY: Continued from Death Love and Rock 'n Roll. Faith steps deeper into the story as Oz tries to deal with what he is and Jo tries to move past life with her mentor  
DISCLAIMER: I have no claims to Oz, Faith, any other Buffy-related characters or the stories surrounding them. Original characters and the plot of this story are mine.  
DISTRIBUTION: If you want it, great! Please let me know.  
FEEDBACK: I'd love some.  
RATING: R for nudity, violence, sex, language, and drug use. Did I miss anything?  
  
The sun was setting over suburban Chicago, its last rays refracting red and gold in the earth's atmosphere. Another example of nature's great capacity for beauty, an innocent 12 year old girl, sat on her bed brushing her long blond hair with one hand and writing in a diary with the other.  
  
"...and that bitch Stephanie called me "Joe" again today. I hate her. How many times have I told how many people - my freaking name is Josephine, not Joe. Joe is a guy's name and I. am. not. a. guy! Geez, my tits might not be humongous like that slut Amy - who Steff actually told me kissed Jason after school last Wednesday - but, hello? Long hair, no penis -oh and Steff also told me that Jason's is reeeeeaaaaly small. But how the heck does she know? Anyways, I saw "  
  
"Josephine, honey could you come here a minute?" called a strained voice from downstairs that sounded vaguely like her father.  
  
"I'm on my way!" she called, trying to put as much put-outednes into her voice as possible. 'Like, they can't think I'm just at their beck and call, answering to their every whim, you know?'  
  
She got up and put a robe on over her summer-weight pajamas. No, she didn't have large breasts, but she did have them and she wasn't comfortable with the fact you could see them sticking out against the thin cotton.  
  
Jo heard another noise from downstairs. Something falling, hard. And she heard her mom scream. "No! What? No! Help!" She froze, terrified.   
  
"Mom?" she asked in a voice that couldn't possibly be heard outside her room.  
  
That voice she could only assume was her fathers, though it sounded even less so now, called out, "I said get down here! Now, young lady!"  
  
Jo opened her door and stepped out, slowly, struggling to get her trembling legs to decide whether she was going downstairs or out the window. Then she heard someone... something pounding up the stairs. And she heard the sounds of her mother struggling against it.  
  
It reached the top of the stairs. It was her father, but it... wasn't. He was hunched over - like his legs weren't jointed right. There was hair all over him and he was... growing. His clothes were ripping apart as he walked toward her with rage in his... yellow eyes? And... he had claws... and his mouth was... Jo's brain pretty much shut down.   
  
She didn't know how not to believe what she was seeing - but she knew it couldn't be. Her parents were downstairs. Watching TV. Or "Cuddling". Her father certainly wasn't turning into a hairy, clawed animal or dragging her mother up the stairs by her neck.  
  
The thing ripped her mother's right arm out of its socket, but the woman was still aware. "Oh, Lord God!" she cried, somewhere dead between an expletive and a prayer. "Jesus in Heaven, please. Please save me. Save my baby. Don't let..."   
  
At that moment, Jo's legs decided that this wasn't the place to be. In a blind panic she pulled back into her room, locked the door layed on the floor, sobbing. Her mother had stopped crying out. It didn't take much imagination to guess why.  
  
Eventually Jo rolled under her bed. You couldn't hear what was going on out in the hall as well under there. Still, she puked in the unwashed clothes that surrounded her as the muffled sound of mastication reached her.  
  
The next morning Jo's father kicked her door in. He was soaked in blood. It covered his face, his chest, his whole naked body. He had literally bathed in it. But he had no memory of anything. He just woke up next to a few gnawed remains of his wife's corpse. He wouldn't even have known it was her except that he'd awoken with a piece of cloth in his mouth - sucking on it. Sucking the blood from a piece of the dress she'd worn the night before.  
  
Luckily, by that time Jo had found her way out the window and into the big, bad world.  
  
***  
  
Faith heard something coming toward the back door of the club. Well, maybe 'heard' isn't entirely the right word - sensed might be a more complete explanation, though there was an aural component to the sensing. She pitched the half-smoked cigarette over toward the vampire's victim and ducked behind a dumpster. Too late to save her... oh well, what's one more?  
  
A creature burst through the door, hitting it so hard right in the center that the door nearly flew straight out off its hinges. She thought she saw the beast - a werewolf she now realized - sniff. Maybe it was smelling her - she had worked up quite a sweat tonight - maybe it was smelling the blood of the fresh corpse just yards away from it. That seemed more likely.  
  
Moments later, a man jogged out the door with a rifle cradled in his hands. The wolf's hackles raised and it turned to face the man, circling to its left - luckily away from her. The rifle raised and Faith was about to wave bye-bye, puppy when someone else came charging out the door. 'Oz?'  
  
She barely had time to recognize him as a flurry of activity took all her attention. The first wolf and Oz both charged the man at the same time. Oz actually seemed to transform in mid-air - from plain old Oz to something very close to totally werewolf. Before either of them made it to the guy though, the gun went off. Oh, the guy paid for it, but he did take down that first were.  
  
A woman stepped out and shot Oz in the left hind leg before Faith even had time to consider intervening. Actually she wasn't sure which side to be on... but this sure was one hell of a show.  
  
Oz bolted from the scene and the skinny crew-cutted blond fired a few shots into the front of a van parked there. She was standing right over the vamp's victim, but she didn't seem to have noticed. Then she walked over to the guy Oz had just mauled and blew his head off. 'This is some cold motherfucking shit, right here,' she thought. The girl stumbled out of the parking lot and into the alleyway, dropping to her knees to retch down a storm drain.  
  
Faith stepped out, trying to decide whether to warn this chick to move it before the cops show up or to grab her and find out why she'd shot Oz. 'Hell, I don't even know if Oz is still a good guy - he could be all wolf by now... Or maybe this is why They told me to come here. Maybe that has something to do with him... but what? And should I care what They want?'  
  
***  
  
Oz sprinted down the street, into a residential area, back through the main business district, down by the river's industrial complexes, along a railroad. He was back in human form, tatters of clothing flapping on his body, but he could feel the power of the beast coursing through his body.  
  
Oz's body ran, and his mind did as well. 'So, you just killed a guy, Oz. How does that make you feel? What was that - self-defense? Defense of another of your own kind? Defense of someone who reeked of another human's blood this morning? Are you defending evil now?   
  
'Are you evil now?'  
  
He came across a huge expanse of blacktop spreading out from a dense industrial zone. The late show of a large movie theatre was letting out and people were filing to their cars and to some of the late-night eateries and upscale coffee houses further into the shopping plaza. Oz looked down at his shredded clothes and figured this was not the place to expose himself.   
  
He turned right, up the hill. Abandoned storefronts, ghosts of retail past, looked forlornly towards the river and the new Waterfront complex. Their windows gaped darkly, sobbing at having been left to stand empty while the new complex was built, leased and used. The developers hadn't even had the decency to push them over and spare them the grief of watching as thier replacements made them obsolete.  
  
Oz continued up the hill into an equally decrepit residential area where he stumbled, exhausted, into a patchy yard with broken bottles and wrappers and paper strewn about. The house in front of him was boarded up, with a notice of condemnation nailed to each piece of plywood over every window. The front door however, was unlocked. Oz went in, needing a place to recover his composure. A place to rest. A place to figure things out.  
  
There was body in the entryway. Oz reeled. 'Can't I just get away?'   
  
But the body stirred, turned bleary eyes toward him and said, "Shut the door, Jim, you're lettin' all the penguins out!" Oz complied, though he didn't see any Antarctic birds or Mario Lemieux. He stepped over the body and into the living room.  
  
Needles were scattered about. There were scorch marks on the carpet and the soggy looking couch. Three young men were sitting in the corner, passing a bowl and filling the air with bluish smoke.  
  
Oz heard someone approaching from behind. In this creaky old house, with the wolf this close to the surface, he wasn't likely to miss much. He didn't react though until he felt the barrel of a pistol pressed to the back of his neck. Oz lost control again.  
  
His left arm lengthened, strengthened and grew fur. His fingernails became steel claws. It was excruciating as always, but the pain didn't matter. He whirled.   
  
Before the gunman even had a chance to register the movement, his weapon was bouncing off the front door and landing on the human refuse in the entryway. He saw Oz's arm - even in a blur - and stepped back, the fat blunt in his mouth dropping to the floor between them. Oz drove his claws into the wall behind the man and snarled, his eyes fading from their human blue to yellow, his mouth lengthening slightly towards a muzzle, fangs gleaming. "Get. Out." He ran.  
  
Oz picked up the doctored cigar and walked past the living room to the kitchen, considering. He popped up onto the almost clean counter and leaned back against a window as rain started to thunk off the plywood outside. A flash of lightning peeked through where the wood wasn't mated well with the windows, followed by a roll of thunder. A baby wailed in a nearby house.  
  
Oz brought the blunt up to his lips, drew the drug deep into his lungs and opened his mouth to let the smoke float out. "Yup. And you better get used to it, kid."  
  
**AN: More on the way. The next chapter is heavy on Faith.** 


	2. Hope buried

Building on Faith  
Chapter 2  
  
***********************************************  
AN: My "rating" before chapter 1 mentioned that the R was partly for sex and this is the chapter that includes it. I want to warn you additionally though, that this isn't a love scene. We're talking child prostitution here. If you think I've handled it poorly, if you think I've failed to communicate that what is going on is a disgusting act, I invite suggestions. If you think this scene is fantastically erotic and you want more, I invite you to remove yourself from the gene pool posthaste. If you think I should burn in hell for even conceiving of this storyline, you're entitled to your opinion but I'm not terribly interested in it.  
  
You've been warned. Enjoy.  
************************************************  
  
  
When the sirens began to doppler toward her, Jo snapped back to reality some and hid the rifle in her coat. She beheld the three corpses in the little parking lot, trying to figure out where the girl by the van had come from and shrugged. None of them would live to be werewolves and there really wasn't anything more she could do to clean up before the cops got there, so she moved out with a dark slayer trailing her unnoticed.  
  
The van was where Teach, the mentor she'd just shot, left it, parked across from the little occult bookshop, locked up and dark. She slid the side door open and looked blindly at the gear in the back. A couple spare rifles. The mold casting setup for silver bullets. Not much else really. Not much at all to show for a partnership that had lasted almost five years.  
  
She took off her jacket and sat on the edge of the van, running a finger over the faint white scars that showed if she wore a midriff-bearing shirt. Teach never approved of that. He had a few scars he couldn't reasonably hide, but he objected to displaying evidence of your failures for all the world to see. A tear rolled down her cheek. Failures? Well, weakness maybe. Weakness and ignorance she still held the day they'd met.  
  
***  
  
The John stepped out of the No Exit Cafe at 7:15, just as the boss had told her he would, and walked up to her, holding out his hand to shake. "You must be Jo."  
  
His hands were clammy, his hairline receding, his face dotted with acne the scraggly facial hair he was working on couldn't come close to hiding. She'd seen worse things in the past month. "That's right. You ready to get going, stud?"  
  
He chuckled, sounding more angry than nervous. Maybe angry that he had to pay for it. Maybe angry that he was such a sick fuck he'd actually asked for the youngest looking girl he could get. Or maybe he just sounded angry when he was nervous - not such an unlikely defense mechanism.  
  
Jo took his wet palm in her own and turned down North Glenwood toward one of the apartments her boss kept as an office for the girls. She squinted in the harsh light of evening in Rogers Park and concentrated on her breathing as they strolled together under the El.   
  
This wasn't her first trick - it had been a long month and she was almost getting used to it... Well, no she wasn't, but she was getting dulled to it already. Still, it wouldn't do to start hyperventilating in the street. Every damn day since she left home, sunset had brought on a suffocating panic that she pretended not to understand.  
  
There was plenty of room in the apartment for a bed, a dresser and two people to stand - but not much else. There were rust stains where the metal bed frame touched the moldering carpet near the window and the sheets were worn thin, but they were clean. The plaster was cracked, leaving gaps in some places where the lath showed darkly through the yellow - perhaps at one time they had been white - walls. There was no toilet in the room, but there was a sink. It dripped constantly and the metal fixtures were caked with rust, but the water was ok to drink if you let it run for a few seconds first.  
  
Jo led the man a couple steps to the bed and had him sit down. She didn't have any instructions on what the guy wanted, but if he was in a hurry he'd let her know. She began to hum a tune she'd heard the other night, something slow and, she hoped, enticing. She unbuttoned her shirt, letting him gradually take in her body as she exposed it. The black lace bra she was left with when she dropped the shirt into his lap was too big, but he didn't seem to mind. He reached out to put his sweaty palms over her breasts and she took that as a cue to speed things up.  
  
She leaned over as his hands fumbled at caressing her and unbuttoned his pants to expose his desire for her. The twelve-year-old girl got on her knees and began to milk him with her lips, stroke him with her now practiced tongue.  
  
The man shuddered and pulled back. Well, she thought, at least this isn't going to last very long. He stood and undressed completely, motioning for her to do the same. She pulled a condom out of the dresser and slowly slid it down his shaft, bringing him dangerously close to an end right there. 'That's probably not a good idea,' she thought. 'He might get pissed if he doesn't get at least a couple minutes inside.'  
  
The sun had pretty much set outside and the apartment was dark, but the guy didn't complain and Jo didn't mind. The darkness just made it a little easier to hide. To pretend this wasn't her - that she was still living the life of a suburban schoolgirl. Still a virgin giggling over the idea of having sex someday. Still alive.  
  
She bucked atop him, howling in anguish that sounded to him like delight. She played the role well, gritting her teeth in something approximating a grin and worked toward his end.  
  
Something pounded against the door, making the wood creak and begin to splinter in the center. The next kick blew out the aged wood behind the deadbolt and the door swung in, revealing a man Jo wished she could forget silhouetted against the lights in the hallway. A man she'd tried so hard to leave behind.  
  
Her father flicked the light switch by the door and blinked at them. He took a step into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. The man on the bed began to tremble, attempting to cover himself and looking for a way out. He had no idea what he'd gotten himself into.  
  
Jo stood naked by the bed, her mouth open in horror. She tried to speak. To ask how he'd found her. Why he'd found her. Who he was...  
  
He dropped a canvas sack to the floor with a metallic rattle and strode to the man on the bed. He ripped the sheet away and glared at the engorged penis that had just been invading his daughter. "You monster," he said. "How could you? How could you do a thing like that to my little girl?" There was something strange about his voice, his posture, his overall presence that fit far too well with Jo's memories. She knew what nightmare was here to terrorize her now.   
  
Jo's father crouched beside the bed in the same spot she had knelt on only minutes earlier and growled. Not the growl of an angry man, but the growl of an animal. The growl of some low beast filled with a rage it lacks a language to express. Then he howled.  
  
The plaster shook, sifting dust down to the bed, the floor. That howl was loud, sure, but there was something more. Such primal force was carried in that sound that Jo and her John nearly joined it. They trembled, frozen by the raw fury they now beheld. The man on the bed couldn't even bring his eyes into focus on the hand just inches from his naked flesh as it grew longer, grew fur. His eyes were open and directed right at Jo's father as his nails became claws and reached toward him, but he didn't see it - or at least he didn't understand it.  
  
As the claws drew deep gashes across the man's abdomen, as they castrated him, punctured his windpipe, severed major arteries in his arms... he felt pain. But it was a distant pain. Clouded by confusion - by a failure to connect what was happening with reality. He was paying for what he'd done. He was being made to suffer for his penchant for little girls. But he didn't have the capacity for enough suffering to make up for it.  
  
When the man was dead, the father turned to his daughter, blood dripping from his mouth and his claws. His eyes glowing with rage, he took the chains from his bag on the floor and strung her up against the bed frame. The John's blood seeped through the sheets and mattress, pooling on the floor where she sat. She could feel it dripping down her back, caking in her hair.  
  
"You know what I loved most about your mom, you little whore?" he asked, crouching down on all fours and looking up at her with pale yellow eyes. "The way she tasted." He grinned, he mouth seeming larger than normal - his teeth looking longer. "The way her warm flesh slid down my throat. The way...." He growled, caught somewhere between the apparent ecstasy of the memory and the agony of his transformation. "The way her blood flowed thick over my hands." he lifted a hand - a paw now - and looked at it. He lifted it closer to Jo. "The way her skin just opened up and let me in..." He shuddered and shook his head. He really didn't look much like her daddy anymore, but he was still able to strangle human words from his throat.   
  
"Doing this," he gestured with his inhuman arm at the bed and the corpse lying on it, "you'll never be able to satisfy a man the way you can satisfy me right now." He shuddered again and what was left of the man was gone. The beast lunged at her, its claws tearing her midsection. Then it stopped. Jo couldn't see clearly through the gushing tears, nor could she concentrate clearly through the pain, but something was distracting the beast.  
  
***  
  
"The 'Beehive', huh? Well, that makes a little more sense than the 'Bronze', right?" Faith asked herself as she stepped into the little coffee shop. The place wasn't crowded, but there were a few people hanging out, sucking on their drugs of choice: caffeine, nicotine, whatever was in the hand rolled smokes. A little heavy on the 'Goth' crowd, but they all looked friendly enough. Faith, dressed in a tight black tank top under a black leather jacket, black denim jeans and black biker boots might fit in. Even without any gleaming metal protruding from her nose, or her chin or her eyebrow - or her tongue, like the chick who took her order.  
  
The tongue stud must've been new, cause this girl could barely talk. "cah ah geh ewe so'thi?" Faith winced as she noticed how purple the girl's tongue looked. She really oughtta get that looked at.   
  
"Yeah, a large black coffee with a shot of espresso in it." Faith pulled a Chesterfield out of the pack she'd stolen from some guy she fucked back in Cincinnati. He'd only lasted about 10 minutes - she deserved to get something out of the night. She lit it and dragged hard on the unfiltered butt, her lungs filling with smoke. 'Luckily,' she thought, 'I'll never live long enough for the cancer to catch up with me.'  
  
Faith paid the clerk, took her coffee to the darkest open corner booth and poured a shot of rotgut sour mash from her little tin flask into the paper cup. It wasn't bad. Caffeine to bring you up. Alcohol to bring you down. Nicotine to smooth you out... Late night snack of champions.  
  
***  
  
Faith sat on the worn mattress of a cot in her tiny, dark cell in solitary. She'd been in yet another "fight" - if that's what you called lying on the ground as three fellow inmates kicked the shit out of you. Really, it didn't matter where they put her. Faith was in solitary sitting in her regular cell as her roommate beat and raped her. She was in solitary walking the perimeter of the exercise yard. She was in solitary in the cafeteria as she slowly, deliberately swallowed food that wouldn't have had much taste if she'd looked for it. Faith was locked within a mental prison of guilt and hate much stronger than the steel and concrete one surrounding her.  
  
Funny thing about prisons: they can do a lot for some folks. They can wake you up like a cold ammonia shower and make you realize who you've been. They can tear you apart. They can break you. But they can't fix you. No, you gotta do that for yourself.   
  
Faith was broken by the time she turned herself in. Confessing to every damned thing she'd ever done felt good. It was a step in the right direction. Of course, no one who didn't already know the truth believed much of her confession. Her conviction for assault on the nurse in Sunnydale was mitigated by the fact she'd just awoke from a coma and obviously wasn't all there yet. Her conviction for aggravated assault on the guy in the train station was mitigated by the fact that her public defender had brought his lengthy record to light and suggested, despite her claims to the contrary, that she felt she was defending herself. That PD was taking orders from someone other than his client.  
  
The DA didn't even charge her with anything else. No murder. No attempted murder. No robbery. The state wouldn't punish her for what she'd done to Wesley, to Buffy... Hell, to damn near everyone she'd known. They didn't believe it. They couldn't prove it.   
  
She'd have to punish herself. Bathe in self-hatred. Wallow in revulsion. Oh, and the other prisoners would be happy to help with the whole beating herself up thing. They were just fascinated by how quickly she healed. Bruises, cuts, stab wounds, broken bones. Give it a couple days and try again.  
  
The outer door to the solitary ward slid open, grating metal on unlubricated metal. Faith heard footsteps approaching her cell and didn't bother to wonder who it was. She'd find out soon enough.  
  
***  
  
Faith crushed another butt in the overflowing tin ashtray in front of her and gulped the chewy dregs of her coffee. Time to do a little patrolling, she thought, standing to leave. Before she could even step out from behind the table though, stabs of alarm went off in her head. A couple was walking up from the back room, hand in hand, headed for the door. And one of them was a vampire. 'So, they'll come to me now, huh? I think I'm gonna like this town.'  
  
Faith followed them out the door and around the corner. There were a few people sitting on their porches in the residential area right behind the shops on Carson Street in this part of town, but when the couple turned down another side street, the houses were dark. The streets empty. Or so he thought.  
  
The vampire's game face came out and he turned to the girl. She tried to scream, but he shoved his fist in her mouth as something between a punch and a fleshy gag. Her eyes bulged and tears ran from them, she went limp and his teeth sunk into her neck.  
  
Faith charged from the shadows. 'Not one more Goddamned victim tonight,' she thought. 'I'm not going to lose another.' She leapt, covering about 5 feet in the air before her right foot connected with the vamp's neck, literally tearing him away from his snack.  
  
The girl crumpled, clutching her shredded neck and whimpering, writhing in pain and woozy from blood loss.  
  
The vamp's neck was broken from Faith's initial attack, blocking his windpipe so he couldn't even scream as she landed on him. A sharp blow broke his nose. Another punch and she drove her fingers into his left eye, popping it like a grape and digging deeper as he lost consciousness. She stood, straddling him, wondering how long it would take him to recover if she let him. He deserved more pain. He deserved to suffer for what he'd done. She staked him on the street, leaving a pile of dust between her legs.  
  
The girl let out a sob, drawing Faith's attention. Her dyed blond hair was turning pink on the left side as blood continued to flow from her neck. It was a good look for her. "What did you do?" she cried. "He was... We were..."  
  
"You were what? Just going to 'neck' in the dark. Did you notice how that was workin' out?"  
  
"But you - what did you do?"  
  
"Listen little girl. And take a good look at what he did," she said, pulling the girl's hand from her neck - though there was obviously no way for her to see herself.  
  
"There are bad people in this world." She pulled the girl to her feet, ignoring her groans and swaying. "You want to blame me?" She smacked the girl - lightly - across the cheek. "For the fact bad things happen." She held the girl's face in her hands, a bit too tightly. Faith was losing it. "There are bad people out there." She shoved the girl back, nearly knocking her down. "Bad *things*." She slugged her in the gut. "Evil things." She kicked the girl's leg, her knee collapsing sideways. "Darkness you can't imagine." Hysteria rising in her voice. "Darkness your mommy was afraid to tell you about." She kicked the girl, lying on the street. "Darkness that would shatter the peace of your worst fucking nightmare," she screamed.  
  
The girl lay unconscious, bleeding in the street. Thunder rolled in the distance. A storm was headed for town.  
  
  
AN: More to come. 


	3. Fresh Starts

Building on Faith  
Chapter 3  
Disclaimers and ratings preceed chapter 1  
  
  
  
Oz stepped out into a grey, foggy September morning taking a deep breath of clean air. Quite refreshing after a night in *that* house. The clothes he'd found wadded up in a corner were damp and noisome, but at least they covered him. Hopefully he could get back to the van soon to change. And to get a proper dressing on his leg. The traces of silver left by the bullet wouldn't kill him - not in his leg - but they burned like hell.  
  
A man stepped out of the house next-door wearing a blue uniform jacket unzipped over a white t-shirt and pants not quite as dark brown as his skin. The look of surprise at seeing someone standing there was quickly replaced by one of disgust. The man turned away and walked slowly towards the street muttering, "Damn junkies. Street isn't even safe for families anymore. What's a man gotta do?"  
  
Oz just thought to himself, 'You have no idea...'  
  
Oz started down the hill, hoping he remembered correctly which way he'd come, and then stopped cold. There, not 20 feet in front of him was Billy. Surely the band's bassist would freak at seeing him after watching him wolf out and attack that guy in the club last night.  
  
Billy exchanged cash for a little plastic zip-lock bag of something with a short man - er boy - who looked about 14, wearing a Joey Porter jersey that didn't quite match the Baltimore Ravens cap caddywampusly set atop his head. The boy glanced his way, spun on his heels and strode off with a gait that suggested way more inertia than his slight frame ought to have.   
  
Billy looked up, did a surprised double-take and then smiled. "Oz, man it is good to see you in the fleshyness! The way you ran those psychos off last night we didn't know what the hell to think. You some kinda superhero or something? The Avenging Guitarist?" He giggled at himself.  
  
"No, not exactly," said Oz. So, apparently they didn't see anything... or at least they don't think - won't admit - that they saw what they must have.  
  
"Naw, but it was pretty frickin' trippy, man. They found two bodies out back, but did you see that dog man? That thing was huge? I guess it mauled the guy... but he was shot too. And they don't know what killed the girl. Hey, you didn't shoot them did you?"  
  
"No. No, I didn't shoot anyone. They... I ran off once we got outside." Oz shook his head. 'The girl's dead?' he thought. 'She looked fine when she was sighting on my hide.'  
  
"Hey, I don't blame you man. Buncha nuts. Speakin' of nuts: what the heck are you doin' in this neighborhood so early in the morning? Man, I would't come down here ever except... well, you know, good prices and all."  
  
"Right. No, just needed a place to crash."  
  
"Yeah, I'm sure." He sniffed at Oz. "And it smells like you crashed pretty hard, dude." He shrugged understandingly, "Hey, I've been there. You might not want to let Jeff know though. He, uh, doesn't like the idea of anyone in the band doing drugs if ya know what I mean." he tapped the pocket where'd he'd stuffed the zip-lock bag.   
  
When Oz didn't say anything, Billy figured he got the message and added, "So you might want to change before practice this afternoon?"  
  
Oz looked up. "Practice?"  
  
"Yeah, man at three. We're getting together to get you a little deeper into our original stuff. Didn't anyone... Oh, I guess you were gone by the time we decided that huh?"  
  
"I guess so..."  
  
***  
  
Jo was still confused, her vision blinded by tears when the report of a rifle echoed off the walls of the tiny room and down the hallway. She tried to clear her vision, but all she saw was a red mess in front of her. Another shot rang out and the red mess twitched. That was all that was left of her father.  
  
His skull had pretty much exploded with the first shot, splattering the rest of his body - and her - with blood. The second shot had left a large whole in the beast's chest, making it clear that he was dead.  
  
She felt her chains moving and knew the gunman was leaning right over her, trying to free her bounds, but she couldn't tear her eyes from the wolf's corpse - her father's corpse. "Why?" she whispered.  
  
The gunman straightened up, her metal bounds were now loose, however solidly her mental bounds held. "Why? Well, it's an animal. It did what it..." he paused, examining the pained expression on her face. "You knew him, didn't you?"  
  
She tore her eyes from the body and looked up at him. Short, thick grey hair capped a worn-looking face dotted by two bright blue eyes that gleamed ferocious intelligence at her. She looked away and mumbled, "He... it... that was my father."  
  
The man's shoulders drooped in sympathy. He looked for a place to sit on the bed or the floor, but the room seemed to be covered with blood. Some beast, some human, all wet.  
  
"No. That wasn't your father."  
  
She looked at him in disbelief. Did he think she was making this up? "Yes it was! I saw him come in here. I saw him change... just like he changed when he killed mom." She began to sob, melding this evening with the horror of a month ago tore any semblance of reason and composure from her.  
  
The man removed his jacket and draped it over her. The room was getting chilly and she was still naked, though she hardly noticed.  
  
"No, I understand - I'm sure you did see that." He faltered, muttering to himself, "God for you to have seen that..." He resumed, "But if your father turned into that, he died long before tonight." She turned her head toward him, but her eyes were blank, uncomprehending.  
  
"Look, I'll teach you what I can, try to explain things... but the first thing you have to understand is that isn't your father lying there. That's a beast. Just like the beast that killed him. And the beast must be destroyed."  
  
***  
  
Jo stood up from the van, wiped a tear from her cheek and reloaded her rifle. "Yes," she said. "The beast must be destroyed."  
  
***  
  
The footsteps continued toward Faith's cell. Too sharp to be a guard's boots, the echoing steps were new men's dress shoes. The window to her box in solitary slid open and she looked up.  
  
The man was youngish, mid-twenties maybe. Clean shaven, neat haricut and, from what she could see, he was wearing an awfully expensive suit for a corrections department employee. His voice was soft and expressive; he almost seemed sincere in his concern asking, "How are you doing, Faith?"  
  
She didn't answer. He'd get to his point or he wouldn't - it didn't really matter to her. Then she heard the jangle of keys in her cell door. The man swung the door open wide and stood there, looking all junior executive, leaving plenty of room for her to pass through. "Why don't you come along? This is no place for the chosen one."  
  
Her eyes sharpened on him. He had the stuffy look of someone from the Watcher's Council, but the bland American accent and downright stylish clothes were all wrong. Besides, if they wanted her out of prison, why would they have waited so long? She stood and stepped to the door, looking up and down the hall for a guard ready to beat her back into her cell. For someone to save her. She turned to him.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
The man smiled. He was pretty darn good at the whole 'looking sincere' thing too. "David Archer. We've met before, though briefly, when you were employed by my organization. I've sort of been assigned to keep tabs on you since... we lost touch. My supervisors thought it was time we got reaquainted."  
  
"You're one of thier goons," she said noting that he was quite disturbed at her opinion of him. "Well, I don't care how nicely they dress you up, you can all go fuck yourselves. I'm not coming back. And if you - or anyone - tries to force me back, I'll shove your head so far up your ass you won't be able to tell a sneeze from a fart." She went back and sat on her cot, a thought occuring to her. "Did something happen to Buffy?"  
  
"Buffy? The other slayer? Well, she's not my department but I've heard quite a bit's happened to her actually. She died for one thing." He noticed Faith's distraught look and added hurredly, "Oh she's okay now. Her friends managed a ressurection that took us quite by surprise. We're all kind of anctious to see if a third slayer is called. I don't see what that has to do with you though..."  
  
"Well, if Buffy's okay, what do you need me for? You have your precious golden-haired girl fighting the good fight, so go back to England and tell the damned council to fuck off."  
  
"The Council?" he said, looking puzzled. "I'm not your Watcher, Faith. I'm your lawyer."  
  
*****************  
AN: And more yet on the way 


	4. Reunion and First Contact

Building on Faith  
Chapter 4  
  
Disclaimers and rating preceed Chapter 1  
  
Well, the van was shot. Literally. No way that thing was moving with silver slugs lodged in the engine block. After changing into some fresher clothes, Oz's feet were on the parking lot with most of his body in the van trying to grab what he needed and figure out what to do with the rest of his stuff. A knock on the side of the van startled him. When he looked up though, startled was shoved aside by shocked and scared. "Faith."  
  
"Down, boy. I didn't mean for you to pee on the carpet over seeing me." She smiled. That was meant to be a friendly greeting. "Do I really excite you that much?" She leaned her shoulder and head against the van, keeping her feet in place. If Oz's thoughts hadn't been so clouded by his hatred of Faith he may very well have found that exciting to watch.  
  
"What are you doing here?" He stood beside the van, not moving, trying to decide if he should back away. Wolf v. Slayer had never worked out very well for him so far. That was a good thing in the past - perhaps not now.  
  
"Aw, no time for small-talk? No 'how ya been'? No 'good to see you, Faith'?" She pouted - though even she wasn't sure how sincere the pout was. "OK, so maybe I didn't expect it. Certainly I don't deserve it. But I actually came to warn you."  
  
"Warn me?" He didn't add 'Of what, you?'  
  
"That skinny chick with the crop-top hair and the big ole gun is headed this way."  
  
"And you came to warn me about her?"  
  
"Well, I've been keeping an eye on her since I saw your little scuffle last night. Honestly didn't see enough to know what was goin on, but I figured I owed you the benefit of the doubt for old times sake."  
  
"But, I thought she was dead."  
  
"Your stalker? No. She put a few bullets in your van, one in the guy's head and walked off to her own van over across the street. Sat there crying for a while. I found her again this morning and saw she's headed this way."  
  
"Someone told me they found a girl..."  
  
"Oh, yeah. Wasn't her though."  
  
"I didn't... Oh, God..."  
  
"No. It wasn't you, Oz. Some vamp chowing down back here before you kiddies came out to play. I dusted him right before - that's the only reason I even knew you were in town."  
  
"Interesting... coincidence."  
  
"Well, maybe not entirely. Wolfram and Hart suggested I come to Pittsburgh - wouldn't tell me why. I wonder..."  
  
"Wolfram... aren't they the one's that hired you to kill Angel?"  
  
"Well, yeah but..."  
  
"And then tried to kill you?"  
  
"Right, but..."  
  
"And now you're working for them?"  
  
"They got me out of jail, Oz. I mean, I didn't even think that's what I wanted. Sure I was rotting in there - but I wanted to rot, you know? I deserved to suffer. But what the hell good was my suffering doing the world? I don't give a fuck what Wolfram and Hart want from me, they got me out and I'm going to do whatever I can to use myself for good. Maybe that's even what they want for some reason. I mean they sprung me 'cause Angel's missing. He's one of the good guys right? Why do they want him replaced now?  
  
"I can't be Buffy, but I'm still better at fighting the forces of darkness than a regular person, you know."  
  
"Assuming you're not one of those forces."  
  
Faith looked at him. A sadness - a disappointment - showing in her eyes. A long-held realization that his point was entirely valid. "No. Whether I am or not. Whether I'm a 'good guy' or not, I'm going to do what they do."  
  
Oz shook his head. "You don't get it, do you Faith? You can split hairs. You can look at things sideways and see the grey. But when it comes down to it there are only two sides - and the fence is too high to straddle."  
  
"And which side is Sunnydale's expatriate werewolf on, huh? Not even sure if you killed some random girl last night?"  
  
"Go away Faith. You did your good deed."  
  
"This will be easier if we work together."  
  
"Yeah, it probably would - If I could trust you. But that is just not gonna happen."  
  
Oz grabbed a couple bags and walked away from the van, not even glancing at Faith again. She just leaned back against the van and watched him go.   
  
'So, the wolfman doesn't want my help huh? Maybe that's because he knows we aren't on the same side of the fence at all anymore. Maybe he knows he's just a rabid animal out for a kill and I'm a mystically engineered champion for good. That hardly sounds like a natural alliance.'   
  
'A young chickie with a rifle and a score to settle might not make a bad partner though... I mean, she kills werewolfs. Sure B and Red weren't about to let me go shred their little friend, but now... Hey, were's kill, right? Just like vamps, they feed off humans. That's evil, isn't it? I fight evil. That's what I'm for.'  
  
***  
  
Jo circled the van slowly, rifle drawn to her shoulder. She knew that if he was there he could probably smell her coming. It wasn't feasible to stay downwind and the preternatural senses of a wolf would probably pick her up anyway. Fine, let it be ready for her. She was sure as hell ready for it.   
  
She was not, however, ready for the smiling, buxom brunette who pirouetted out of the line of fire and lunged for her weapon before her determined finger could depress the trigger.  
  
She stood in shock. 'Another one? I even wondered about a pack last night... and I wasn't ready now.'  
  
"Sorry, babe," said Faith in her best answering machine/receptionist voice, "no werewolfs are here right now to take your bullet. Anything I can do for you?"  
  
"No werewolfs my ass. Give me that back and we'll see how *you* take a silver bullet."  
  
"Ouch! Um, does that usually work? The whole 'hand me my gun so I can shoot you' line? I mean, most people aren't too thrilled about getting shot with any kind of bullet, you know?"  
  
"Right, and most people can't move like you did to grab the gun."  
  
"Well, I didn't say I was human exactly - just that I'm not a werewolf." Faith tried her best to look innocent and submissive. "And I'm really not. Honest."  
  
"So, you're not human and not were... what's that leave?"  
  
"Well, that leaves a lot of things!" She started counting them off on her fingers: "I could be a vampire, except for the whole sunny-noon-outdoors thing. I could be a vengeance demon in human guise..." Faith noticed that Jo was backing away, looking puzzled. "Don't tell me you don't know about those things?"  
  
"There's no such thing as vampires..."  
  
"Aw, come on. You think werewolfs are the only monsters under the bed real enough to actually bite you? Vampires are kinda the whole reason for me being what I am. The Vampire Slayer. The one girl... Well, there's this whole speech that goes along with that introduction but it sounds better coming from some stuffy English guy." Faith stepped out from behind the van toward Jo.  
  
"So what... What are you saying? Who are you?"  
  
"Faith. The Vampire Slayer. And the 'vampire' thing isn't like an exclusive, you know? Pretty much any evil, supernatural thing - that's my enemy. I'm thinking Oz the werewolf counts."  
  
"No." Jo shook her head and looked down at where the barrel of her rifle was nearly scraping the surface of the parking lot as it swung in Faith's hands.  
  
"No? What... that's who you're gunning for right? Short guy, red hair, kinda silent?"  
  
"Yeah, Oz the werewolf. But he's mine."  
  
"What, you can't share?"  
  
"Not him. Not after he... He's mine. I'm gonna watch his blood pour out of him. Because of Me. Not you. Not any other 'slayers' or 'vampires'. Me."  
  
Faith stood there looking at her for a long moment. So, this is personal - but still... "Look, a werewolf isn't an easy kill. I don't know how long you've been doing this alone, but a little backup can only help."  
  
"That's not true..." Jo continued to shake her head sadly, then snapped up. "I don't want you to interfere."  
  
"I'm trying to help, damn it." Faith stalked over and pushed the rifle barrel sideways across Jo's face.  
  
"I don't need your help, Slayer. I don't want your help." Jo tried to show the steel resolve she felt, tried to look Faith in the eyes. But there was something there now - something dark and frightening.  
  
Faith snapped the stock of the rifle up against Jo's chin, rocking her head back and buckling her knees. Faith caught the girl easily and brought her back up face-to-face. "I'm trying damn it. I want to help!" She dropped the rifle and slammed her head into Jo's.   
  
Faith threw her against the van. "I'm trying to fulfill my destiny!" She blasted a straight right into the girl's chest, hearing ribs crack. "To fight the forces of darkness!" An uppercut to Jo's gut doubled her over, coughing and on the edge of consciousness. "Why won't you let me? Let me save you!"   
  
She pushed Jo back up, cracking her head off the metal side of the van. "Why won't the world let me?" she screamed searching Jo's unfocused eyes. "I'm the Goddamned Slayer!" She slammed the slumping girl back, bouncing her head off the van again. "Am I so tainted I can't fucking be on your team?"  
  
A right hook knocked the girl out cold and she slid sideways down off the van leaving a smear of blood behind. Faith glared in rage at yet another failure - yet another stupid innocent endangering herself - then charged off, out of the parking lot.  
  
  
A/N: Chapter 5, the finale, is coming soon. 


End file.
